There wasn't much more that we could learn from the King, so before long we agreed to hearth back to Stormwind. I watched Vrand, Brecki and Tori disappear in a flash of green, then pulled out my small stone hearthstone and prepared to transport as well. I was still concentrating on the stone's spell when a movement startled me. Turning, I saw a naga rush into the cave, screeching. She didn't seem to see me or the king at first, but when she reached the back of the cave, she turned. Our eyes met and I knew I had just found trouble. So, I did the first thing that came to mind. I ran.

I made it all the way out of the cave to the entrance, where I stopped. There, on the island just in front of the cave, was the ugliest person I had ever seen. He looked like the cross between a skeleton and a decomposing corpse, except that he was glowing purple and was kind of transparent, like a purple glowing undead ghost. Or something. He had a staff and was happily smashing away at a circle of nagas. What else I might have seen I do not know, because at that moment, the first naga caught up with me. I felt her loom up and then my entire world went black.

It's quite a strange experience, being dead. You can't see anything but your own body and there's this mental tug that keeps you from drifting away. I paused for a moment, experiencing the new sensation before I decided to cut the tie that held me over my body. I suppose I should have been scared – I was dead! – but I guess the fact that I was walking through a video game had finally sunk in. I had already decided to find the spirit healer and rez at the nearest safe graveyard. I had no intention of coming back to see the nagas. But just as I was about to release from my corpse, I felt a shudder run through my spirit and then the world went black once more.

When I awoke, it was to the pounding thud of a vicious headache. I stifled a groan and squeezed my eyes shut. My mind was so groggy that it took me several long seconds to remember who I was or what had happened. As to where I was...

I found myself laying on a cold stone floor. The world was still black, but I soon realized that that was because of the thick blindfold that was covering my eyes. My shoulders felt like they were going to jerk out of their sockets as they were wrenched back, and my wrists were tied brutally together behind my back. The air was hot and dry, very different from the brisk sea breeze that had been blowing in at Theramore. And even through the blindfold, I could sense bright sunlight. A short ways away, I could hear the whistle of a wind through tight spaces, but it was muffled, suggesting that I was inside a building of some sort. That idea was confirmed when I heard the sound of a thin door open and slap closed again, heralded by the approaching sound of someone's big feet.

"Kef thakul! Garlorv hak sin adorl. Juerloku!"

I froze. Great. Just great. Fabulous! How the hell did I go from being dead to being a horde prisoner?

"Keli?" The familiar voice whispered in my ear. "Keli, what happened?"

I coughed and, realizing that I must still be wearing my guild headset, cleared my voice. "I'm not sure. I think I'm in a horde compound of some kind."

"Where?" Brecki asked, all business.

"How the hell should I know?" I muttered, then winced. I was being a bitch. "I can't see anything."

"Why didn't they just kill you?" Tori asked. "I didn't know Horde took prisoners."

"They don't," Brecki relied.

"Look, you three start working on finding those items," I told my guild mates. "I'll figure a way out of here. They can't keep me forever." Why would they want to?

Grudgingly, the other girls agreed and once more I found myself alone with the hollering voice of the orc. At least he hadn't started getting violent yet. And it sounded like he was yelling at someone else other than me. I listened to his enraged jibberish for several minutes before I heard the second voice. It was raspy, like a man with a severe case of strep throat. It wasn't yelling but never the less he seemed to be arguing with the orc. The orc hollered a few more words, then stormed out, physically slamming the door behind him. The door slapped hard against the frame and bounced several times before closing a final time.

There was a moment of silence, then I felt a pair of icy cold fingers brush my face and the blindfold was pulled from my eyes. Blinking in the brilliant light beaming in through two windows of the red stone building, I stared up at the face of a male undead. The same glowing purple undead male that I had seen fighting nagas the instant before I died.